DIY By Design : Blog of Rayfields Decorating

Why use coving

You may decide to fit coving to a room purely for decorative aesthetics reasons or it maybe used to cover up unsightly cracks around the wall and ceiling line. Whatever the reason the following post will help you understand about coving and its uses.

Coving or cornice?

Do you call it cornice or do you call it coving, which is correct? Well, both are correct and are the same thing, cornice is the Italian word for ledge. A cornice is described as a horizontal decorative moulding that tops a building, window or door or an internal wall. If you would like to know more about the history or more about cornice have a look at cornice on Wikipedia. Coving on the other hand is described as being used to cover transitions between surfaces, again this is a horizontal decorative moulding. Again, if you would to read more about the history or just about coving, have a look at coving on Wikipedia.

Types of coving

Coving / cornice can be made from several types of material from lightweight polystyrene, paper faced plaster, plaster of Paris, wood, stone, concrete and even plastic. When we are talking about coving for the domestic decoration purposes in a house between the wall and ceiling these are normally made from lightweight polystyrene, paper faced plaster or plaster of Paris. These vary in weight and cost respectively.

Out of the three choices for the domestic use I prefer to use the paper faced coving. I like it’s construction and weight, I find the plaster of Paris coving to be to heavy and delicate to work with and the lightweight polystyrene too flimsy.

Coving profiles

Coving comes in many shapes, or profiles the most common being concave (a quarter-round moulding) but there are many others such as classic designs such as Egg and Dart, Swag and Bow, Rope, Swan neck, Dentil, Roman Vine, Floral, and Victorian Gothic to mention a few. You can choose a profile to suit your existing décor or simply choose one that you like the look of, at the end of the day they all do the same thing, they give you a decorative finish and to cove the transition between wall and ceiling.

Why choose coving

Many people decide to fit coving to cover the cracks around the wall and ceiling line but they also give a nice pleasing look between the wall and ceiling and takes away that hard square look you get, a nice coving be it traditional styles like egg and dart or more plain styles such as the concave will enhance any rooms appearance.

How to fit coving

This post deals with the types of coving, the difference between coving and cornice, the different profiles you can get, in the next post called how to fit coving I will give step by step instructions on how to measure, cut and fix the coving.